Joseph E Davis: Let’s avoid talk of ‘chemical imbalance’ — it’s people in distress
The idea that one’s distress is primarily caused by a neurochemical deficiency that can be corrected by a drug is a fiction. The idea that it explains first-person experience or that it offers some exemption from responsibility is a fiction as well.
Stephen Dobyns: Leaf Blowers
That autumn morning he awoke to the crying
of lost souls that quickly changed to the roar
of leaf blowers up and down the street
Liz Moran: (Harper’s Bazaar)
I watched her for ten long minutes
in Barnes & Noble.
Michelle Bitting: Walls
Worst I had to deal with, well, I suppose that time my son was shut in a padded room and shit himself at the special needs school. He was 13 and having one helluva wiring crisis. I got called to come get him after he graffitied his feces across white walls.
Elena Karina Byrne: Reality may still be unacceptable Gerhard Richter
A Repeating Dream I’m Belly-Down at Eleven
beneath barbwire like bedsprings during night-climbs
Jon Queally: Just Hours After Anti-Semitic Remarks, Trump Promotes Himself as ‘King of Israel… Second Coming of God’
“The President is a raving lunatic,” responded Florida Democrat Andrew Gillum. “He is not well.”
Leslie McGrath: Litany
Each day’s a train bound for Calgary, St. Paul, Santa Fe, its flickering windows a foreign film. The doors will never open. But the tracks will beckon. You’ll lay your … Continue reading
Leslie McGrath: Her Dementia
I walk the earth and have forgotten
which memory’s mine and which is not
and who was she I used to be.
Marilyn Monroe: Men Are Climbing To The Moon But They Don’t Seem Interested In The Beating Human Heart
[ed. note: On February 5th of 1961, a recently divorced, mentally exhausted Marilyn Monroe was taken by her psychiatrist, Dr. Marianne Kris, and committed to the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic in … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: Belchertown
. This old half-mad woman who pushes an empty baby carriage up and down the sidewalk in Belchertown. I realized I’ve never looked in her face. It is unbearable. All … Continue reading
Jose Padua: Thank You for the Stars and All the Things That Slowly Drift Away in the Distance
When I gave the panhandler some spare change he looked at me and said Thank You then he looked at the person next to me and said Thank You again. … Continue reading
Adrian Blevins: What Makes Us Lose Our Minds
You find out about people like Nigel in little bits and pieces, anyway. It happens while you’re wondering whether the hills might in another country look like white elephants until … Continue reading
Adrian Blevins: Of Madmen and Spies
I take as my theme the mentally ill, understanding as I do just how tepid the bathwater is. So let’s not neglect for a moment the voyeur’s own affliction—her writerly … Continue reading
